Hope to Die

Intercut: montage of images showing the Wards at social events with the Rowans – Rotary Club, dinner dances, Christmas parties. Camilla Rowan is clearly in view in the last image, standing with Nigel Ward. He has his hand on her shoulder. She’s about eleven.

SHEILA WARD

We met up occasionally.

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

I think it was rather more than that, wasn’t it? And didn’t your husband play golf with Dick Rowan too?

Intercut: picture taken at Shiphampton golf club, showing Nigel Ward and Dick Rowan with their bags of clubs. Two other men standing with them have their faces blurred out.

SHEILA WARD

(becoming agitated)

They played together once or twice. Hardly at all.

(Producer hands her the same picture)

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

This was taken in 1996. They played in the same four-ball all that year. Indeed, they came second in the club league.

SHEILA WARD

I hope you’re not suggesting –

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

What did Camilla call your husband, Mrs Ward?

SHEILA WARD

I don’t know what you mean –

JOHN’S VOICE (off)

It was ‘Uncle’, wasn’t it? She called him ‘Uncle Nigel’.

Can we speak to him, Mrs Ward? Can we speak to your husband about this?

SHEILA WARD

(gets up and puts her hand against the camera lens)

That’s enough – turn that thing off right now –

Cut to: John, at desk

JOHN PENROSE

We never were able to talk to Nigel Ward, and Sheila Ward refused to speak to us any further after that last exchange. And in a way you can’t blame her – no one likes having questions of this gravity raised about their loved ones. But there are questions, all the same.

Cut to: over the shoulder PoV, looking at what John has on his desk

Remember this picture? It’s the Shiphampton Rotary Club Christmas party 1997. The same party Camilla went to the day she left hospital with her baby son.

And this man, standing just behind Camilla and her father -

(pointing)

- is Nigel Ward.

But you’re probably thinking – hang on, if he was at that party, he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the disappearance of the baby. There simply wouldn’t have been enough time. And it’s a good point. But I’ve tracked down a number of people who were at the event that night, and no one can remember him being there before nine thirty. And if that’s correct, it would definitely have given him enough time. But as far as I’m aware, he has never been questioned about his whereabouts that night, either then, or since.

Cut to: image of Camilla, her parents and the Wards at the Christmas party. Gradual close-up to focus on Camilla and Ward.

So was Camilla Rowan really abused as a child? She herself has never said so, not even to the court-appointed psychiatrist. And it would clearly have been in her interests to divulge something like that, if it were true: it could have been a significant mitigating factor. But as of now, we only have ‘Mandy’s’ word that it ever happened.

And even if it was true, we have no way of knowing who the man was, unless Camilla herself chooses to tell us. Some things appear to point to Nigel Ward, but in the absence of any sort of police investigation he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And as I said, there are a number of other potential candidates as well, and to my knowledge none of them has been questioned either.

Which leads me on to the one thing I think we do know about this case.

It’s unfinished business.

Camilla Rowan has been proved, again and again, to be a liar. A brazen, persistent and accomplished liar. But has she been proved to be a murderer? Because, frankly, I’m not convinced. In fact, the more I learn about the actions – or rather inactions – of South Mercia Police, the less convinced I am. And let’s not forget, the baby has never been found. The police and the CPS say he’s dead, and the jury believed them. But is there cast-iron proof of that? No. No body has ever been located, despite what appears to have been an extensive and exhaustive search.

Though there are some places that I know for a fact were not searched. Like the Ward family garden, which backs on to a nature reserve. Or the Shiphampton golf club – nearly 200 acres, including several areas of woodland and a small lake.

Intercut: drone footage of Shiphampton golf club